


ravenous

by emmamere



Series: a gathering of abnormalities (hxh) [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Backstory, Morbid, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 14:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14334921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmamere/pseuds/emmamere
Summary: Hisoka was a boy born of flames and blood, who would get worse but never better.





	ravenous

His very first memory was of the clogging scent of ash. Soon after, the sight, as it fell to the rooftops like faux snowflakes. His lips were parched and his cheeks hollow, same as that of the other strays cluttering the streets.

Long ago had his nation become host to endless warfare. And though the gnaw of hunger had worsened and worsened, he had never imagined it effecting him on a directly personal basis.

Yet here were the planes littering the sky, solemn gray birds preparing to relinquish their presents onto the beige town. The whistling of bombs echoes in his ears; third memory, most terrifying. 

He sticks out his tongue to catch the black snow, recoiling at the bitter taste. Some are screaming and running for the safety of a bomb shelter. Others outstretched their arms to welcome death. But most pulled their caps over their eyes, shuffled their feet, and crouched down to stare at the cobblestones, to afraid to look Him in the face as He killed them.

Meanwhile, the child simply shoved his hands in the pockets of his faded corduroy jacket and waltzed over to the crowd shrieking in front of a storm door, too lifeless to care but without a cohesive reason for his own demise.

And as the other boys and girls, adults too, cradled their heads and whimpered, crying out occasionally at the booming vibrations, he merely glared at the ceiling while clenching an old sucker between his teeth. He would like to call it exciting, or horrifying, how the ground writhed under his feet and how dust fell from cracks above, but it wasn't much.

When they finally left to find bruised, chalky corpses piled in the streets and buildings collapsed and burning wildly, he might've laughed. Or maybe not. Did it matter, really?

At least the bright gold of flame as it clung onto homes, creating desolation, set a small fire in his heart. Enough to grin at as the beating gradually smoldered away and he was left, again, with monotonity.

-

Simply because he had no inclination not to, he followed the sheep-like herds of people as they fled the area. Many sported satchels or sacks of whatever had been salvaged; he brought with him only the clothes on his back. He felt death looming as his skin sallowed and whatever remaining meat on his bones dissolved.

Nonetheless, he carried on barefoot through dirt road until it was night, and he could proceed no longer. Void of all his previous amusements, he curled in the yellow grass and sneered as others sobbed.

-

His ankles and wrists were tied together with a rusty chain, a gag over his mouth though his eyes remained untouched. There were no other kids in the truck. He supposed they had already been sold.

There was a tag on his arm. He yearned so desperately to rip it off. Squinting through a life-long lack of education, he successfully managed to read the print as 'Hyskoa.' At first he thought it a classification, one he was ignorant to.

He wondered, dear God why, had they bothered kidnapping and immobolizing him, for if they had just asked if he wished to be sold into slavery or comfort or whatever they had planned, he would have accepted their advances with an eager smile. And this genre they had labeled him - Hyskoa - he would take it in replace of his own nonexistent name gladly.

When they came, Hyskoa didn't struggle. He allowed the giant hands of adults to guide him to his new home. He was told that he would be whatever he was to be, and that he was to do whatever he was to do. He nodded, tripped over his shackles a few times, and desired the familiar taste of an old sucker.

This was the most excitement he had ever suffered; he felt truly and utterly terrified.

-

"Here, Hyskoa." Marvelo breathes into his ear, phantom fingers wrapping around his own as Hyskoa clenched the knife.

The wench below him, limbs strapped with leather bindings, moans and tosses her head back in pain. Her straw-blond hair is ratty and disheveled, and her nut-brown eyes clouded in agony yet also wide with fright. Strange. Hyskoa didn't know that people could feel that many things all at once.

He doesn't really feel all that much, to be honest. But he knows enough to realize that this shouldn't be normal, nor right.

"Isn't it bad, to hurt her?" Anxious anticipation. Sweat beading on his forehead and making his hands, the very same ones clutching the blade, as soft-slippery as melted butter.

Marvelo laughs. It is an awful, grating sound. "Not if she won't be missed."

She screams, the volume of her cry muffled by the sock in her mouth. "It is okay to kill if  it is a whore like her?"

"No no, my boy, my Hyskoa. It is always okay to kill. No one will ever stop you."

Hyskoa nods. His owner's words make little sense in his mind, but they must in Marvelo's, so he agrees.

"Now up--"

The bitch shrieks.

"--and down,"

Blood like warm milk colors his pale hands.

-

Hyskoa worships the ground Marvelo walks upon. If he were permitted to, he would bow on his knees and kiss it. But he isn't, and he doesn't.

His master teaches his language and arithmetic. He stuffs his belly full of rich, tasty food. He puts clothes, not rags, onto his back. He whips the very same back. Hyskoa lavishs the bright red streaks as they crisscross his skin, relishes the sharp, vibrant pain. 

Life has been dull and there is nothing more flavorful than the cries of a dying girl and the sheer euphoria of the crackling belt.

Hyskoa is not skilled, nor strong. Instead he paints the faces of his fellow circus members as they prepare for the stage. The momentous suspense of the show fascinates him, calls his eyes to the performers as he watches from behind shadowing curtains.

-

He begins to murder independent of Marvelo's command. Killing excites him; it always has. But now, it is more - it connects him to his owner, deepens his devotion. If his love and loyalty are an ocean, the deaths they commit together are glaciers just touching the surface. The bitches slayed without Marvelo are the human embodiments of the darkest cove.

Hyskoa feels lost amidst his bloodlust. On one hand it means something real and substantial, on the other it is merely the tent of Marvelo's pants after a girl takes her final breath. His own self is something inbetween.

Perhaps that is why, eventually, he runs, with the last circus and Marvelo burning behind him. The writhing red flames excite him, like they always do. Though his heart is stone-cold, drowned in the waves of passion and mortal terror.

Five minutes later he has forgotten his own name. Ten and his owner is nothing but a faded memory.

The tag remains on his arm. Squinting through the smoke in the air and the fog of his mind, he reads 'Hisoka' before tearing it off and dashing it to the dirt, forsaken.

This time, he is sure. The hysterical laughing of the new and-improved-Hisoka cuts through the night.


End file.
